To the Unexpected

Here’s to the unexpected, the surprises
that come our way—the Christmas card 
that arrives on the Ides of March, the rain 
burst on a sky-blue summer day, a poem
that births itself in minutes at the coffee shop.
Here’s to the unexpected— the music
of blackbirds ribboning in the heavens,
controlled and chaotic like Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring; the beauty in a mound of soft butter,
alluring, sensual, evoking images of warm, 
freshly-baked bread smeared in creamy delight; 
and truth birthed from questions like those
of the brooding and unless-I-see Thomas 
after the resurrection of his friend. 
Here’s to this one fleeting life, its magic, 
its commonplace, its mundane, its divine, 
its brief hours, so unexpected, the light waning,
to our surprise.

 Published: Verse-Virtual, Aug. 2024
 Photo by: Shakib Uzzaman at Unsplash